Ocean Stories

A giant brass bell tolled in a dark mahogany stairway as explorers young and old chanted “Earle – Earle – Earle – Earle,” their candles flickering. Dr. Sylvia Earle led guests to their seats in front of a roaring “Great Fire of Exploration” and took her seat at the front of the room. This ritualistic procession is not an everyday occurrence at the Explorers Club – New York’s legendary gathering place for researchers of land, sea, air, and space. Friday night’s tribute ceremony marked a very special opportunity for the club to honor Dr. Earle as one of its most beloved and accomplished members – and the first woman to receive this distinction, paving the way for female explorers in the Explorers Club and beyond.…

by Courtney Mattison
A major environmental campaign is reaching a tipping point in Spain and making waves around the globe, and you can get involved. After years of prolonged opposition in and out of court by environmental and political groups, in August the Spanish government granted permission to Spanish oil giant Repsol and its partners to conduct exploratory drilling for oil and gas in the waters surrounding the Canary Islands, an ecological hotspot and popular tourist destination. An extraordinary group of activists, celebrities, governments, universities, scientific committees, tour operators, foundations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) including WWF, Greenpeace and Oceana are uniting in the fight against this controversial prospecting project as Repsol prepares to begin drilling in upcoming months. This opposition movement is ramping up its efforts with an international campaign – Save Canarias – to protect the Canary Islands from oil spills and other potentially catastrophic threats associated with underwater hydrocarbon exploration and drilling.…

“I have lots of heroes — anyone and everyone who does whatever they can to leave the natural world better than they found it.” ~ Sylvia Earle
       

CHANGE one personal behavior! For example, reduce your seafood consumption — or give it up all together. Or, when it comes to plastic apply the Three R’s: REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE. Learn how you can be part of the solution and go for it!
 

DONATE to Mission Blue! Your tax-deductible contributions support public outreach, scientific expeditions and direct appeals to policy makers to build a global network of Hope Spots to restore the ocean. Your support is what keeps us afloat!
 

JOIN the Mission Blue newsletter! Don’t worry we won’t overload your inbox.  …

By Alan Lightman
The tornadoes that devastated parts of the South and Midwest this Spring, just weeks after a deadly mudslide in Washington, demonstrated once again the unimaginable power of nature.
After each disaster, we grieve over the human lives lost, the innocent people drowned or crushed without warning as they slept in their beds, worked in their fields or sat at their office desks. We feel angry at the scientists and policy makers who didn’t foresee the impending calamity or, if forewarned, failed to protect us. Beyond the grieving and anger is a more subtle emotion. We feel betrayed. We feel betrayed by nature.
Aren’t we a part of nature, born in nature, sustained by the food brought forth by nature, warmed by the natural sun?…

Last weekend in New York City, iconic denim brand G-Star RAW unveiled RAW for the Oceans – the much-anticipated collection for Spring/Summer 2015 made from “Bionic Yarn,” an “eco-thread of fibers” created from recycled plastic bottles gathered from the ocean. This eco-fashionable clothing line sprung from a collaboration between Bionic Yarn, the Vortex Project, Parley for the Oceans and the curatorial expertise of musician and entrepreneur Pharrell Williams.
G-Star RAW, Bionic Yarn and Parley for the Oceans hosted a star-studded guest list for Ocean Night during New York Fashion Week on Friday at 23 Wall Street. Guests appeared on the blue carpet before entering a dim and surreal environment reminiscent of a moonlit scuba dive. Pharrell Williams, creative director of Bionic Yarn and curator for the collection, donned a cobalt blue hat and led a dozen models on stage clad in hip ensembles made from the first-ever denims woven from Bionic Yarn as Frank Ocean and Jay Z’s “Water” played in the background.…

By Joseph Ierna Jr. / Ocean CREST Alliance
Today a global struggle effecting the health of our communities, our economy, and the very life-sustaining health of our oceans is the ugly reality of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities or, as called in the Bahamas, poaching. Since our encounter with hundreds of poachers on Cay Sal Island Bahamas on July 2nd, crawfish season opened August 1st and the legal Bahamian fishermen are just returning from their first month of trips. The numbers of poachers they are seeing are astounding, while the numbers of crawfish they are catching are the worst in a decade. Our oceans are dying. 
“If tings don’t change soon Joe, I’ll be changing my occupation,” says Scott Harding, a 35-year veteran craw fisherman based on Long Island, Bahamas.…

Click here to support The Fund for Coral Bay by Save Coral Bay
We’ve received lots of inquiries from residents and lovers of St. John and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the past weeks regarding a mega marina called Summer’s End that is pending approval for construction in Coral Bay. There is great concern for the environmental impact of the project on the local reefs and species (such as the endangered Green Sea Turtle), as well as belief that the regulatory bodies and government officials whose job it is to safeguard these habitats have vested interests in seeing the construction go through. We encourage our community to form their own opinions regarding this mega development in the pristine waters of St.…

By Megan Cook
The ocean is home to many of the wonders of our planet – 72% of them to be exact. The deepest valleys, highest peaks, largest plains, and largest animal to ever live are all in our salty blue backyard right now. There are also mountains underwater – lots of mountains! Vast ridgelines peel around the world like zippers closing the boundaries of our ocean plates, and tens of thousands of seamounts dot the seafloor. Seamounts are isolated mountains, either active or extinct volcanoes jutting up from the seafloor, building some of the most unique and poorly understood ecosystems on our planet.
Rising sometimes miles off the seafloor, seamounts are hotspots for biodiversity in our oceans.  In the same way the world’s largest ball of yarn becomes a worthy detour to disrupt the monotony of a Midwestern road trip, the variation in topography and habitat structure of a seamount attracts life.…

By Courtney Mattison
Equipped only with the tools of Polynesian ancestors and their unwavering conviction, the crews of the Hōkūle‘a and Hikianalia traditional voyaging canoes sailed into Apia, Samoa on Sunday after navigating from Hawaii through Polynesia since May. The Pacific Voyagers and Nainoa Thompson – President and Master Navigator of the Polynesian Voyaging Society – were accompanied onboard the Hōkūle‘a for its most recent sail by ocean artist Wyland and Conservation International’s Greg Stone and were welcomed ashore by Dr. Sylvia Earle amid an impressive display of traditional Polynesian performers. Once on shore, the Samoa Head of State addressed his guests with a profoundly heartfelt speech expressing Samoa’s appreciation for its kinship with Hawaii, setting the tone for a four-day conference hosted by the United Nations on Small Island Developing States (SIDS).…

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